Rachel Carson on the Intelligence of Wonder

From the 1965 Reader's Digest book: How to Live with Life.

What Closeness Is Made Of: The 36 Questions That Lead to Love

Arthur & Elaine Aron set out to manufacture intimacy in a laboratory. Then their method went viral.

On What We Get Wrong About Madness, and What That Wrongness Costs

Michael Laudor, Carrie Costello, and the Promise America Keeps Breaking

The Ceremony Is the Cure: What the Rest of the World Knows That We Don't

On the cultural wisdom of honoring what we have no words for

The True Story of My Fake Ex-Husband

In the late 1990s, I met a stranger on the subway, and (illegally) married him a few hours later.

The Unbearable Lightness of Not Being Yourself

How I Stopped Being Myself Long Enough to Get Better

A Field Guide to Spotting Manipulation in Real Time

Crib sheet for the road

What We Mourn When We Mourn a Celebrity

On Tom Lehrer, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and collapsed space.

On Becoming a Person

Carl Rogers on the painful gap between our true selves and performed selves

The Unspoken Grammar of Love

The Subtle Patterns That Predict Divorce—According to the Psychologist Who Can Foresee It with 93.6% Accuracy

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Disliked

How Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology Explains the Modern Self

Notes & Thoughts: The New York Times 1st Well Festival

The Politics of Being Alone: The Systemic Bias Against Singles.

When One is the Loneliest Number

The Vigilant Heart: Hypervigilance and Emotional Exhaustion

What neuroscience and attachment theory teach us about the exhausting vigilance that keeps love at bay

The Beautiful Trap: How Limerence Warps Perception and Fuels Obsession

The intrusive and inescapable high that isn't love, at all.

The True Story of My Fake Ex-Husband

In the late 1990s, I met a stranger on the subway, and (illegally) married him a few hours later.

Parents & Couples Respond to Last Week's "Single & Excluded" Newsletter.

On Loneliness and Exclusion: The Hidden Architecture of the Single Life

When One is the Loneliest Number

Things Worth Sharing: What I'm Reading, Watching & Thinking About

Current doings at Stern Enterprises

The Loneliness Cure: Dr. Ruth’s Practical Wisdom for Connection

The Secret of Connection from New York’s Loneliness Ambassador

BONUS POST: My Lifelong 'Childhood Disorder.'

The Thing That Didn't Leave.

Why Saying “I Love You” Is Not Enough.

And what to say instead.

If You’re Trying to Avoid Reality, How Can You Face Your Life?

James Baldwin in Two Little Known Gems.

Don't Know Who You Are? These Games Can Help.

Learning Yourself Through Play.

What Looks Like a Crush but Feels Like Obsession? Limerence.

Dorothy Tennov on Love and Limerence